Suicide peak ahead
By Susan Long, Enterprise Editor
Suicide expert Chia Boon Hock -- ST PHOTO: LIM WUI LIANG
IF THE downturn deepens, Singapore should brace itself for a rise in suicides. And it should do all it can to prevent the increase from starting now, warns Dr Chia Boon Hock.
Singapore's resident suicidologist, who has spent 40 years collecting and studying suicide data, says there have been four major suicide peaks here over the past 100 years.
Notably, three of these happened just after major recessions, when financial woes and unemployment took their toll. The other came in wartime.
The first was during the 1906 to 1910 Bankers' Panic financial crisis, which saw the suicide rate surge 71 per cent to 11.3 per 100,000 people.
The second peak was in the aftermath of the Great Depression, from 1936 to 1940, when the toll swelled to 15.8 per 100,000 people.
The third, from 1941 to 1945, during the tumultuous Japanese Occupation, saw a record 16 per 100,000 people kill themselves. The fourth saw 12.8 per 100,000 people ending it all from 1986 to 1990, just after the 1985 recession.
Apart from these peaks, Dr Chia says Singapore's suicide rate has been on a downward trend and remained relatively stable at about 10 to 12 per 100,000 people per year. That translates to about 400 deaths a year, or one a day.
But if the recession worsens, the 73-year-old psychiatrist says that the incidence of people taking their own lives may be headed for another crest.
By Susan Long, Enterprise Editor
Suicide expert Chia Boon Hock -- ST PHOTO: LIM WUI LIANG
IF THE downturn deepens, Singapore should brace itself for a rise in suicides. And it should do all it can to prevent the increase from starting now, warns Dr Chia Boon Hock.
Singapore's resident suicidologist, who has spent 40 years collecting and studying suicide data, says there have been four major suicide peaks here over the past 100 years.
Notably, three of these happened just after major recessions, when financial woes and unemployment took their toll. The other came in wartime.
The first was during the 1906 to 1910 Bankers' Panic financial crisis, which saw the suicide rate surge 71 per cent to 11.3 per 100,000 people.
The second peak was in the aftermath of the Great Depression, from 1936 to 1940, when the toll swelled to 15.8 per 100,000 people.
The third, from 1941 to 1945, during the tumultuous Japanese Occupation, saw a record 16 per 100,000 people kill themselves. The fourth saw 12.8 per 100,000 people ending it all from 1986 to 1990, just after the 1985 recession.
Apart from these peaks, Dr Chia says Singapore's suicide rate has been on a downward trend and remained relatively stable at about 10 to 12 per 100,000 people per year. That translates to about 400 deaths a year, or one a day.
But if the recession worsens, the 73-year-old psychiatrist says that the incidence of people taking their own lives may be headed for another crest.
